The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing eBook

Nothing had ever been heard of the professor from
the day he started from the Atlantic side of the isthmus,
intending to cross the mountains and land on the Pacific
beach. And it was becoming a positive mania in
the mind of Andy, who lived with his guardian, Colonel
Josiah Whympers, to some day go down there and follow
in the track of his lost father, in the hope of discovering
his sad fate.

It was with this idea in mind that he had united his
forces with Frank’s inventive genius and helped
build the monoplane with which they had won the race
to the top of the neighboring mountain, during Old
Home Week at Bloomsbury.

And every day he was thinking more and more of what
strange things the future might have in store for
him, if he ever started on that exploring venture.

CHAPTER III.

SOMETHING ABOUT THE BIRD BOYS.

“How about coming over tonight?” asked
Frank, as the boys halted at the gate of Dr. Bird’s
place, where Andy had gone to get his wheel, since
he lived some little distance away.

“I’d like to first rate, Frank, because
there are some things I want to talk over with you.
But I promised Colonel Josiah to get at his books
tonight and straighten them out. It’ll take
me all evening, I reckon.”

“Oh, well,” remarked Frank, “see
you in the morning anyway. This breeze will have
worn itself out by then, perhaps, and if we feel like
it we can take a little trip somewhere in the ‘Bug,’
as you like to call our dandy little aeroplane.”

“I hope so,” replied Andy, eagerly.
“It’s been some days now since we were
up, and I’m more than curious to find out if
that new arrangement of yours is going to help us
any in getting a quick start.”

“Does the colonel still persist in having old
Shea sleep outside the shed?” asked the other,
as Andy pushed in to get his wheel out from under
a side porch, where he had thrust it before starting
off to the baseball game.

“Sure,” came the reply. “When
Colonel Josiah once starts on a thing it would take
an earthquake to stop him. I tried to tell him
that there was no danger of our monoplane being injured
now that those two men who robbed the jewelry store
were locked up at police headquarters, waiting for
some formality to start them on the road to a ten-year
sentence; but he only shook his head and said Shea
had nothing else to do and might as well be earning
his salt.”

The incident to which Andy referred was related at
length in the preceding volume of this series, “The
Bird Boys; or, The Young Sky Pilots’ First Air
Voyage,” and had created a ten days’ sensation
in the quiet little lake town of Bloomsbury.

Two rogues had robbed the extensive jewelry establishment
of Mr. Leffingwell and carried off the loot in a couple
of suit cases taken from the store. Unable to
get clear away on account of a quick chase, they had
hidden in the vicinity of the town. One of them,
named Jules, had been an aviator at some time in his
near past over in France, and learning that the Bird
boys had built a monoplane, which was even then ready
for a flight, they had attempted to steal the same,
with the intention of giving their pursuers, who were
hunting the woods for them, the laugh.